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Chapter Four

Fisherrow, Musselburgh One year earlier: September 1723

B ack then, I lived with Ma, Da and Joan in the tiny cottages at Fisherrow Harbour in Musselburgh, on the Firth of Forth. We lived in close quarters – too close. They call Musselburgh the Honest Toun on account of the nature of its folk, which is by and large true, for it is a town of fishwives and fishermen and mill workers. Industrious, from riverbank to beach. By day it hums with machinery that makes coarse, cheap cloth for servants’ gowns. By night it thrums with the waves that bring the whitefish home from the shallow estuary waters to the wooden pier at the harbour.

An honest toun. But I don’t think you could say honest types came in and out of our particular cottage. It was barely even a cottage, just one big room with a box-bed, like all the others on the row. Da was out on the water five days a week, dawn ’til dusk when the weather allowed it, and when he was not on the water he was at the Mussel Inn. He was part of a crew of men who worked one of the Fisherrow boats and we were all glad when he went and dreaded his return, for the certain thing you could say about Da – whether he was out on the estuary or whether he was on shore – was that he was an angry man. He carried resentment around with him like a companion. He was angry at his lowly status in life and had schemes afoot to try to get himself out of it, but they never came to anything much.

Me and Joan helped Ma clean the lines and fix the bait, then sell our share of the catch on a stall at the harbour, where fishmongers from all around would come each morning, so our hands were more often than not red-raw and tinged with whelk and mussel brine and cuts from the hooks.

Ma’s hands were the most weather-beaten and work-beaten you have ever seen. She would hide them under soft suede gloves, which she bought from the haberdasher on Musselburgh High Street, when she went to kirk or whenever she ventured out of Fisherrow. None of the other fishwives bothered. Ma was different, like that.

One day she came home with a new pair that looked soft as a baby’s skin. Palest pink, they were, and long too, so that they stretched halfway up her arms.

‘Summer gloves,’ she said, showing them off to me and Joan. ‘The haberdasher says ladies wear them on day-trips.’

Joan and I cooed over them, although I could not think of anything worse than having to wear gloves on a hot day. When Da saw her put them on the next Sunday morning, just as we were about to leave for kirk, his face soured. He was already hungover and grey and was looking for a fight.

‘Who do you think you are, buying fancies like these?’ he scoffed.

‘I can’t take these old hands into the kirk,’ said Ma. ‘These mitts are light and airy.’

‘You’re ashamed of your work,’ growled Da. ‘Embarrassed of who you are.’

I pretended my boot laces needed tightening and cowered over my feet. I could hear Joan swallow nervously next to me.

‘God knows I’m not ashamed of myself,’ said Ma.

Da held out his hands for the gloves. Ma hesitated, for she knew that if Da took them, she might not get them back.

They stood there like that for a moment or two. We were all crowded near the front door, and I did not dare stand up or say anything.

‘Please don’t take the gloves. They were expensive,’ said Ma.

‘Keep them then,’ he said. ‘And use them to cover those ugly hands of yours.’

If it sounds unpleasant, it was – watching him leave the house in a bad mood and seeing Ma wipe tears from her eyes, staining her new pink gloves. But at least he had not hit her that morning, likely because he might have felt guilty about it, sitting in kirk.

But now you will be wondering how Ma could afford such nice gloves from the Musselburgh haberdasher. Well, the fishing life was only half our story. By night, visitors came to our cottage. Folks from near and far. Folks we knew, and others who were strangers who knew of us. For we were not just fisher folk. We were caught up in the world of tea-smuggling, which I suppose sounds very daring, but to me was simply ordinary life. The visitors would bring sacks of black tea from the Orient that had slipped their way to Scotland via Gothenburg, in the Swedish empire, and these folks always stayed for a cup to sample it. Da – or Ma, if he was out – would hold on to these sacks for a few days, hiding them in a cavity under the box-bed, which was in a cupboard off the kitchen side of the room, then pass these sacks on to other folks that came a-calling for them with codewords.

I say it was ordinary, but of course there came a time when I realized Ma and Da were part of a gang of criminals, of sorts, but we never seemed to make great monies from it, nor live in a merchant’s house somewhere grand further away from the river; and Ma’s hands stayed red raw, although covered sometimes in a nice pair of gloves, and Da stayed discontent. So I suppose the part they played in the smuggling of tea from the Orient to Great Britain, by way of the Scottish shoreline, was trivial. There’s no customs post at Fisherrow, for it is considered too small a port and the waters too shallow for decent foreign-ship trade. So smugglers can come and go as they please. Up and down the coast of Scotland and England fine and fancy goods are brought ashore on secluded beaches and at quiet ports. Coffee berries, aniseed, snuff; haberdasheries from India. They are hidden in casks and canisters and buried in caves or stored in trusted safe houses. For our part, it was tea, and it was stored under our box-bed for a time, then collected and, according to Ma, sold on the black market.

But whatever Ma and Da earned from their part in it all was pennies and just enough to keep the roof over our heads and put a joint of meat in the pot on occasions, which was a welcome change, and sometimes some nice whisky and fancy goods like kerchiefs and rugs and gloves.

Da also kept a pile of these pennies behind a brick in the wall, in case a press gang came calling and he could bribe them to ignore him. But the press gangs never came as far as our cottage; they merely roamed the alehouses. I often wished they would come for Da, for he was fearsome when he was in full temper, and he was in full temper quite a lot of the time. He was loud when he was being merry with the tea folk and loud when he was angry with us, and would switch between the two in a flash.

Joan is younger than me by two years and spoiled rotten. We all took an ague not long after she was born, and she almost died. Since then Ma has doted on her. I don’t remember the sickness, but Ma tells the story. It was a fever that swept Fisherrow, brought in on a boat full of smuggled tea. I shook it off in a day or so and was taken in by a neighbour, as those three tossed and turned in the bed. Da slept deep, but Ma was fitful and thought Joan would not survive, so poorly she was. She would not suckle and at first she mewled like a kitten, then even the mewling stopped.

‘But you did survive, precious hen,’ Ma would say, stroking Joan’s cheeks, ‘for God had already taken three of my bairns born before the two of you, and He had taken enough. You and I slept off that fever together, and after three days we were both well enough to take milk and a bit of broth.’

And then Joan would likely say something like, ‘Can I have a bit of broth now, Ma, is there any in the pot?’ and Ma would reply, ‘Aye, Maggie’ll fetch it, won’t you, Maggie?’

Joan would always eye me as she let Ma stroke her cheeks – a look that said, I’m the favourite . I hated her for it, yet I wanted into that embrace. I didn’t want to fetch a cup of broth, I wanted to dive right into the middle of them and feel them stroke my cheeks. I never did, though, and stood awkwardly watching them; and for that they thought me surly, until Ma would say, ‘Fetch the broth, hen, for the wee one, and put the kettle on for all of us.’

So from birth Joan was doted on by Ma and even a bit by Da, which meant that as a young bairn she became the dreadfulest telltale, who would run to Ma with all manner of trifles that I had done this or that, and we spent all our days squabbling and our nights pinching each other; we must have driven Ma and Da quite mad, for when the rows erupted, they were nasty. Joan would shriek and I would shriek back, and Da would always blame me, saying as I was older I should know better, and he would smack me around the head and threaten me with the workhouse at Eskmills, where girls like me could lose a finger easy as anything in the big machinery.

It was a horrible life, really. But I dare say there were horrible lives being lived up and down the coast, between the vicious sea and the loom of poverty, if you did not work all the hours God sent. So we had things to keep us going. Da had his drink. Ma had her gloves. Joan sang in the fishwives’ choir and tripped out to practice twice a week, with Ma polishing Joan’s face clean with a cloth and making sure her little boots were shiny too. And I had my dreams, which back then were filled not with snakes, but with plans of how I might escape it all.

As I said, there had been five babes born, of whom me and Joan were the last two and the only ones who lived. There was another pregnancy, when I was around the age of six or seven, and that was how I learned how babies are made and that losing an unborn babe is a trauma of blood and grief. I didn’t know Ma had been with child, for she hadn’t said anything, but one morning there was blood in the bed and Ma was doubled over herself in agony, and Da went out and came back with some of the other fishwives, and they sat me by the hearth as they got Ma organized. Someone bundled the bed sheets away and brought fresh linens, and Da went out again and was gone for a long time. One of the women brought Joan and me some porridge, which we ate sitting on the Turkish carpet by the hearth, which we would never normally be allowed to do.

One of the women said, ‘Now, girls, let your ma rest.’

And we did. For the blood had frightened us.

Later on Ma got up and started on the dinner. She sighed and sniffed as she chopped and boiled, and her face was grey and her hair a greasy mop. Joan went to her and Ma put her arms around her, and then her arms around me.

‘You poor girls,’ she said. ‘You have all of this to come.’

After that, I don’t think Ma was in the mood for any more baby-making. We all shared the box-bed, and Little Paws – our tabby mouser – too on cold nights, so it was likely she and Da rarely had the chance anyway. I think that suited Ma, for I only ever saw her clothed. Buttoned tight from her neck to her tiptoes. Grey nightie at bedtime, and striped skirt covered with a black apron by day. She was a woman who took a slap from her man and accepted it as well deserved, and we were girls who tried to avoid Da’s temper at all costs. Joan avoided it better than I did.

And that was how it was until the day Patrick Spencer first came to our home. I was one-and-twenty years old, and it was as though someone had lit a candle in the darkness.

I remember the evening as clear as if it was yesterday. It happened under a blushing sunset that had that first crisp sniff of autumn about it, with the Forth shimmering pink under the sky. I had just been out the back after supper, bringing in firewood, and my hands and apron were grubby with wood-shavings. Little Paws was by the hearth, her favourite spot, sleeping on the small square of Turkish carpet that was one of the various imports we had come by. Joan was doing needlework, which mostly consisted of sewing variations of her own name onto fabric scraps in ever more elaborate designs – Joan , Joanie , Jo , and so on – and admiring seeing herself embroidered. Ma always let her fritter her evenings away whilst I was set to housework, even though Joan was nineteen by then. But when Patrick Spencer walked in our door, my sister put that girlish needlework away, lightning-quick. And, now I come to think of it, she never took it out again.

Spencer had a head of curly hair and a freckle-spattered face that made him look like he was up to mischief. He had a tendency to wink too – enough to make him cheeky, but not so much as to make him appear a sketchy sort, like some of the men that visited us. He was not tall of stature, nor needed to be. His merriness more than made up for it. That’s what caught my attention. I felt almost as though he was inviting me in. With just one look.

‘Well, this is a cosy scene,’ he said as he stood at our door. ‘Like something straight out of a painting. And that is a sight for sore eyes, for I’ve been travelling so long I’d quite forgotten the comfort of a good hearth and a welcoming family.’

‘We do try to be welcoming,’ said Da warily, eyeing the man’s expensive greatcoat. ‘But I am not sure how you come to have knocked upon the door of this house, out of all the houses in Musselburgh.’

That was Da trying to make sure Spencer had proper connections and was not out to steal from us, or set a trap by which Da might have got into trouble. But Spencer introduced himself formally and said he had spoken to Mr Neptune at the Mussel Inn, which is a code they all used, on account of the Roman god of the sea, and Da relaxed after that and offered him a dram of whisky.

‘I hear you can look after things,’ Spencer said, after Ma had taken his greatcoat. Then he paused, assessing us.

Ma was nonchalant, brushing the dust off the collar of his coat. Da’s brows were raised, waiting to hear what this man’s business was about. I saw Spencer taking in the smallness of us all. The low-ceilinged kitchen, where the smell of smoking fat from the hearth and its blackened griddle always lingered. The curtain, an offcut of fabric from the mill, which barely covered the entrance to the box-bed or concealed the musty scent of its blankets. The piles of fishing line in a crate, which gave off the whiff of old bait. The gloom we lived in, with one tiny window and candles stuttering about the place. Yet look at those china plates, shining away on the tall dresser. Pockled from a trading ship, of course. Best-quality Scotch whisky too. And Joan and me, our hands rough and raw; our eyes alight with the thrill of a mysterious stranger in the house. Oh, Spencer took it all in, and I was not surprised that his eyes lingered longer on Joan than they did on me, for she’s a bonny thing and she knows it.

‘I can look after stuff, for a price,’ said Da. ‘But nothing stolen nor counterfeit.’

Spencer laughed as though Da had told a great joke, then once he had gained his composure again, he looked at us girls and winked.

‘Well, if it’s neither stolen nor counterfeit, what would anyone want it looked after for?’ He spoke with a voice that had a burr, if that is the right word, of softness to it. He was not from around here. At a guess, I would have said he was from well over the English border. Gosh, didn’t his eyes twinkle. And he was not afraid of Da, was he? Not intimidated at all. I admired that about him too.

Da took a dislike to him at that, for he did not pour another dram, as he usually would for visitors. Instead he let Spencer’s cup run dry as he took the parcel and his payment and put it away in his hidey hole. The parcel was nothing to look at, merely a small box wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, although I couldn’t help but guess what might be inside it.

‘I’ll be few weeks or so,’ Spencer said, toying with his tobacco pipe. ‘Got a bit of other business to attend to, then I’ll be back for it. If anyone comes asking, you don’t know anything about it and you’ve never met me, understand?’

He glanced then at me and Joan and the mischievous look was gone.

‘The girls understand,’ Da replied.

We nodded, for the moment seemed a deadly serious one and there was an undertone of Da’s temper in his words. The fire crackled in the hearth and a sea-breeze got up, just enough to brush at the window. ’Tis a wicked blast that comes off the Forth sometimes and makes you think of the sea-creatures that roam there and beyond. Humpbacked whales and seals and dolphins and the like. Once a whale washed up on the beach and the stink of it was so high you could smell it all the way into town. We were told not to go near it, but Joan and me did, right up close. It was magnificent in its decay, but when Ma found out we had been down there, she said it was bad luck – bad as a curse. Da slapped us both.

‘Are you off to sea?’ Joan blurted, blushing pink as all eyes turned to her, for it was not like either of us girls to ask questions of the strangers who came a-calling.

‘As it happens, I am not off to sea, no, young lady, but am journeying on land, as I have to see a man about a job,’ Spencer answered.

Joan narrowed her eyes and pouted a bit, which I suspect was her attempt at being a flirt. ‘That will be a long journey,’ she said. ‘For there aren’t many jobs around here but fishing jobs. Are you headed north or south?’

‘You are an inquisitive lass,’ Spencer replied, sounding unimpressed. I liked him more and more now. He seemed to take no nonsense.

Joan shrugged, but this was the moment at which Spencer seemed to have made a decision, for despite his previous interested glances at Joan, he then turned his attention to me. ‘But I shall look forward to seeing you all when I come back,’ he said. And then he winked. Right at me.

Joan never forgave me for that, but she only had herself to blame for speaking out of turn and making it look like she was the sort of girl who would ask too many questions. Men don’t like girls like that.

The next few weeks dragged. I went about my chores and did half of Joan’s as well. I let Joan tell me all the gossip from the fishwives’ choir: the fallings-out and bickerings, and the rumours about which girl fancied which boy.

But, quietly, I made some changes. It was time I started looking after my appearance a bit. It was nice when a man winked at me, a good-looking man like Spencer, and I wanted more of it. I trimmed the split ends off my hair and made sure it was brushed morning and night. I bought a cheap scented hand-cream from the general store. I made sure my gowns were always laundered and free of snags and tears. Each morning, on waking, I could not help but wonder, Will Patrick Spencer come back today?